


my happy little pill

by slwtwn



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, FTM Tyler Joseph, Hurt/Comfort, Letters, M/M, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Tags Are Hard, Therapy, Trans Character, i'm not english so i have to do some research for the school things, probably a lot of other fandom references, so correct me if you want, some things might not be correct, told through letters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-20 15:23:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slwtwn/pseuds/slwtwn
Summary: Tyler can't swallow pills. Josh swallows pills too much.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> my first multi chaptered fic! i have no idea how this is going to go or what my uploading schedule will be (i suck at it, already warning you) but i am just filling up this prompt from my notes.

August 25, 2017

 

Hello,

 

I don't know how this will go, or how much I will tell you. What I do know is that these letters might not even be read, and that I will change the names of some people to protect them. Of course you will not know who they are, and I hope you don't try to find out. I don't know if you even find it out, but please don't. Don't try to work out who's behind these letters, I want to keep that part of me safe. So I guess I'll have to tell who I am.

 

Hi. I'm Tyler. I'm 17, and a senior at Hawkins Middle. Well, no. That's how I want to say who I am. I'm not. My name is actually a girl's name, because I am a girl. But I don't feel like it. I will keep using Tyler as my real name, because he is the person in my head I wish I was. And that way it's harder to find out who I am. You might have heard of my story, if you go to the same school in the same shitty town. The girl who wants to be a boy, who wears two sports bras and bandages over his chest. Who plays basketball when the court is empty, because he wishes so hard to be a fucking basketball player. He can't. Or correctly, she can't. Because she's a girl. She has to wear skirts and has to grow out her hair. She has to wear makeup that her sister Madison helps her pick out and the clothing they share. Tyler is not a boy. Tyler is a girl. She can't take clothes from his brother's room. She can't wear sports bras to make her chest flat. She has to wear real bras, and braid her hair, wear makeup and look pretty.

I hate it.

I am Tyler. I am Tyler.

That's what my friends Jenna and Patrick tell me. Patrick is gay, he understands the struggle of having to be something you aren't. To fit in a shape society created for you to be 'perfect'. He has a secret boyfriend, they go on dates together. I wish that one day I could find myself a boyfriend, and he tells me I'm handsome and that I beat him at basketball, because I'm the best player. He will tell me I'm Tyler. Tyler. He. Him.

Sometimes, I am close to telling someone else besides my friends, like my parents, but they don't understand and they never will. At least they let me cut my hair shoulder length. It's acceptable for the both of us. So let me tell you a little more about myself.

 

Every day I go to school at this school called Hawkins Middle. I get average grades, and I don't stand out. I am good enough. I don't take any extra classes, even though the music teacher has caught me many times sneaking around in the empty classroom with just the instruments. One time he even left me while I was lost in my own space. We don't talk much. He knows me probably. I have quite the reputation. Even though we don't talk I feel like I can trust him. He is just there and lets me do my thing. In the beginning he would ask me if I wanted to join his music class, but after I just looked at the several instruments and didn't even acknowledge his presence, he just let me be. And that would be the perfect world, wouldn't it? That everyone would leave me be. I used to be bullied, but now I have some friends to protect me, and everyone just whispers sometimes. I notice they do. They don't. 

You probably expect me to say how good I am at playing instruments, but actually, just like everything, I'm just average. 

 

The problem with being a 17 year-old, is puberty, and for girls (also including me) it means, periods. My mom wants me to go on birth control, but it would make using testosterone much harder if I ever got that far. I just say I use it, but I don't. I bet my mom would be mad if she ever found out, but she would be even angrier about me wanting to be a boy. But anyways, it's not like I can swallow pills anyways. It's like my body just rejects everything. Thank god T (that's what I will call testosterone so that I don't have to keep typing it out, and if my parents ever found these letters, they wouldn't know) also has the possibility that I get it through needles.

I like to think that one day I will actually get T, and that I will be a boy, but I don't think it's going to happen. And I've settled with that idea.

 

I live in a family of 5, parents, a sister and two brothers. I am the oldest. Every Sunday we go to church, my mom helps around there, since she is a stay-at-home mom. My parents are sweet, but kind of strict. Both my brothers play basketball (that's where I got the idea from, I've always wanted to join for real, like not just watching or throwing a ball. But I can't, I'm a girl), and Zack, the eldest brother has to throw 500 hoops before dinner. The youngest brother, Jay, only 250 (since he's younger). My sister Madison loves to paint her nails and always does mine. She means well but I can't sit through it. Zack knows it and likes to make fun of me. Maybe I could tell one of them. Maddy would understand. She's always been so caring.

 

Let's go back to school now, shall we. I'll tell you who's who.

First up, my best friend since kindergarten, Jenna Black. We live in the same street and our parents have been friends for ages as well. I trust Jenna with my life. She's very pretty, if I were straight (well gay) I would definitely crush on her. She has these beautiful bright blue eyes. Then there's my friend Patrick. He's too kind, as you know, but has heavy social anxiety and he depends on his boyfriend a lot. They barely match though. His boyfriend is the kind you would see on a motorbike, in an amazing band, with a leather jacket, and tattoos and piercings and maybe even dyed hair. Patrick wears knitted cardigans and has glasses, sometimes a fedora as well. But that's outside school. You can trust Patrick with you life as well, and he gives me his clothes sometimes, which makes me feel better about life. I've hidden them in a hole in the back of my closet. There are boxes in front of it and also a small door, I have no clue what it was used for before we lived here.

 

But Jenna was right. I hate talking to people, but this lifted a weight off my shoulders. Of course I have a therapist, like every kid these days. His name is Dallon. He feels like a dad, he probably is a dad. I trust him too, but not too much. Therapists are just there for their money to be honest. It's weird though. I don't tell him everything, but here I am laying my life bare and open for you. It's like I'm talking to a new friend, and maybe I'm going too fast, but I trust you already. I have no idea who you are. Maybe one day I will enclose a return address so you can send something back, which I doubt. It's not good in this world to trust someone. I've done that before and that's how that (true) rumor spread around the school. I told her everything, and I thought she accepted it, but surely we stopped talking and there it was, the secret that I wasn't going to share with the rest of the school. It happened with several other boys as well. They pretended to like me just to get some information out of me. Well everyone does that, like with fights and stuff you know. People you barely talk to and are popular suddenly come up to you, asking for your life story.

Well let's hope you don't share these letters.

 

Thank you, letter friend.

 

Love always,

Tyler


	2. September 1

September 1, 2017

Hi, friend.

I still don't know how to open letters properly or even how to write, but I hope you don't mind very much. Thank god I haven't seen any changes in the responses to anyone, so you didn't get these letters or you decided not to tell them. I sure hope you actually get these letters you know. I don't know why but it feels safe to have a person that I can confide in. A person who is not my therapist. Let's talk about my therapist. Like not actual talk about his personal life or anything, but just the normal weird teenage complaints talk.

He signed me up for these group therapy sessions. Once a week I go to this therapy group where I can talk to kids my age, who have been through worse or are going through the same thing, or who were going through it. I have no idea what to think about it. Dallon knows I barely talk already to people, not even him. Once, I talked to him about being trans, and he told me to tell my parents, that they would accept it. I mean he was probably just trying to be nice, but obviously I can't tell my parents, or I'd be on my own in the streets right now. Dallon told me a little about these therapy sessions, and that I could just look the first two weeks if I wanted to, my parents gladly accepted the fact that I'd be making friends more, since they don't really know about Patrick, so they just think Jenna is my only friend. 

So once a week, Wednesday, I go to the group therapy sessions. There is one therapist who is like Dallon, but not Dallon. There are several kids in the group, which can differ from 3 to 10, which is weird to me. How do they decide how large the group is supposed to be? Patrick says Pete used to go to these sessions as well, but he quit, it wasn't helping anyone, which makes me look on the darker side of it all. What can it help? These kids can be popular and spread all my secrets. They can tell everyone how I'd rather be a boy and we all know how badly that ended last time. We all sit in a circle with all kinds of people our age, and we talk about our problems. Seems so easy. Especially when your life is a complete lie from start to finish and you don't want to tell anyone about how you feel, especially strangers. Stranger kids, with even stranger habits and lives. Maybe some kid loves to listen and then gets all the problems of the other teens thrust on his or her shoulders, bringing them down and making them sad. I don't understand therapists.

I went to Patrick's house recently, Pete was there and some other guy with floppy brown hair, who you could describe as a labrador who had seen a squirrel. Patrick nodded towards the kid, and Pete stood up, dragging the kid to the bathroom, a few minutes later they came back, both strangely calm. Patrick tried to dust it off saying floppy-head just took his medicine. I am so sorry for calling him floppy-head but I really don't remember his name, maybe later. Pete and Patrick were hugging really close, and it made me wonder about his parents. Weren't they about to come home? What if they saw Patrick, their good son, who was so smart and talented, hanging around with a guy older than him who was up to some weird business? I was definitely going to ask him about it later, but not when they were practically in each other’s laps. Floppy-head laughed every once in a while, just staring at the wall in front of him, sometimes looking at his phone again. 

I still don’t understand what was going on there, but I am smart enough not to ask. My mom invited Jenna’s parents over for dinner, and Jenna joined as well. It’s nice having parents who are friends with your best friends. It could also end terribly, but so far, it hasn’t. I told them about Patrick and Pete, and floppy hair. Apparently, his name is Brendon, and he was basically stoned that night. Pete sells drugs? And Brendon does too? 

Me, being the not understanding person that I am, wondered how Patrick even managed to find Pete, being complete opposites. Jenna laughed at that. Opposites attract you know. She let me paint her nails, while we talked about boys. My mom would be proud. She quickly stuffed some clothes her older brother doesn’t fit in anymore in my closet. I really wonder how I got such good friends. I don’t deserve them, considering I am a complete, full sin in the eyes of God. Being gay and trans and all.

It’s late, and I’m nearly falling asleep, so that means this letter is slowly coming to an end. Isn’t it weird how I write you letters when I could just text or call someone, or even send them a mail. But no, I decided to grab a typewriter, and write it old fashioned way. It’s kind of fun this way, it adds the stress of typing a sentence and the word correctly in one try. How often I have made notes of how a word should be spelt. Maybe I should just switch to email instead. It takes the fun away, which bothers me, but I’ll get there.

In the closet where I found this typewriter, I also found a piano/keyboard. I keep hiding it under my bed but I love messing around with it. I have had weird obsessions recently, with music and vintage stuff. But that’s the trend isn’t it? Liking vintage stuff and all that?

I just realised that you could also be in my session group. Hope that isn’t gonna be too awkward when you realise who I am. Maybe you should do like a secret sign when you think you recognize me. Maybe I will have found something in the end of this letter, because now my mind is drifting off to the session. How is it going to be? I’m terrified to say the least. Maybe I should actually get some sleep, it’s late. 

I also have found my symbol on the actual typewriter. This way if it’s online, I can type it as well. And you can make it with your hands! So, if you think you see me, make this symbol. It makes it more fun you know. It’s also scary, but that way if I see someone doing it in the hallway of school, I know that someone actually reads the letters.

For now, no return address, but as always, the ending.

Love, Tyler

p.s. the symbol is |-/


	3. September 10th

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay shit this work already has like 150 hits and thats a lot for me
> 
> but like maybe comment because i wanna make new friends and i get happy with comments so hmu
> 
> also its 1:30 already oh boi  
> Also it's been a long time since I touched this story but I already have no clue how to continue  
> but shoutout to my friend Ri @celmatesakiller for helping me come up with these backstories for these characters

September 10th,

 

Dearest friend,

I'm sorry I haven't written you a proper letter in a while, or even a normal letter in general. I've been busy. For once I've been legit busy, I am trying to get better in school so my parents won't start asking these questions, which I really cannot handle. They already ask after every therapy session how I'm feeling or how it went. Well, I'm glad it's not conversion therapy, I've heard a lot about that. So anyways, as you might remember, I went to this therapy group session thing, and apparently, as Dallon told me, it's twice a week. I should go to at least one session per week, but if I needed it or just needed to talk or listen, I could always go to both.

It was weird, the sessions last nearly an entire day, and it's in this facility, where some kids sleep and live all week round, some even longer. It seemed really off and it was all white and very clean, I wonder how the bedrooms look, are they clean as well? Thank god I just need to go to the session. So most of these kids actually live there, and they see me as the weird outsider kid, Dallon suggested that I'd go to every session for the first few weeks, to get to know the kids. But you must be curious, an entire day? How do you fill an entire day with just talking. Well let me tell you how Wednesday went. I arrived there just before 10, because it would start then, apparently I can just skip school for this and not get in any trouble. I wish it was that easy for the rest of the year, but apparently it can't be like this. 

So I got there around 10, and we all sat down and first off started out with just their names and if they lived in the facility or nearby. I barely remember any of the names, but I think that's okay. Maybe they will wear nametags or something like that, so I can recognise who is who, or maybe I'll learn, who knows. So we did it very calmly and after that we all were assigned to a partner and find something we had in common, and we did that with several people, maybe it's just to make friends easier, but I had the feeling everyone knew each other already. 

I should probably tell you that it wasn't Dallon who was leading this group session, it was quite a pretty girl/woman. I remember her name, Debby. But it was strange, it was an all-boys group. Maybe they chose a woman because some of these kids really had some traumatising shit and women are calmer with that. This really makes me think about the stuff I'm going through, and putting it in perception. Maybe it's not so bad, but I'm getting off topic again, so let's get back to it.

Around noon we went to the cafeteria and had lunch, I felt so awkward but no one asked me to sit with them, so I have no idea wether that's a relief or not. After that we could calm down in the "playground" and then continue with the session, she tried to get everyone to maybe loosen up so she started telling how she ended up in this facility, apparently she was abused by her dad a little, but her mom protected her. It fucked up her mind, but not that much, and she decided to help kids like this going through all kinds of stuff. That's pretty courageous if you ask me.

I told them that I have depression, and that I'm trans. Honestly why do I need to say it like this. "Hi I'm Tyler and I'm a man, but not really a man since I have a women's body, so biologically speaking I am a woman, but I feel like I'm a man." No. I hate it. I Wish I was born in a different body, so that I could always be like; "Hey 'sup! I'm Tyler." 

I don't really have much to tell so I might add something from some other days, so that it will be the same length as the rest of the letters. I'm sort of a controlfreak like that. Sorry in advance.

Well, that's that.

Your friend, Tyler

 

October 1st

 

Hello friend! 

Do you still remember me? The random kid that you barely remember who sends you letters and then forgets about them because he's busy with school and therapy.  
Well, happy spooktober friend. I hope it's happy for you, as the weather gets worse, so does my mood. At least it's easier to admit this all through stupid letters which aren't even read by anyone.

I am slowly learning everyone's names, so I'm going to introduce you to them so you also know what I'm talking about, but again, I will be using different names for everyone, maybe one day I can tell you who everyone is. There are of course a lot of people at this facility, but these are the kids I hang out with most.

There's Brendon, I already know him, but I haven't seen him a lot there, but when I do, he looks very tired, but runs around like he has energy for days. According to Pete and Patrick, he has ADHD but also used to do drugs and alcohol, and is now trying to stop. Pete used to deal drugs, and he said that Brendon asks him sometimes for something, anything. I feel bad for Brendon, his moods range from happy to sad in a span of a few minutes. I wonder if he actually has friends in this facility, since he lives here now, but at least Pete and Patrick visit him. 

There's another kid, named Frank, and he avoids Brendon like he has a contagious disease or something, because every time he sees him, he either turns around or walks behind Gerard, his friend. I haven't really had time to talk to them, since I feel safe with Pete and Patrick, so I hang around with them a lot, but Patrick and Frank are friends apparently. Then there's Gerard, a person who understands me more than anyone does. They are genderfluid and their parents are homophobic, they got kicked out when their dad found out he was doing crossdressing/trying out their identity. They live in the facility with Frank, which is good for them. Every now and then Gerard invites me to their room with a smile, but I decline. I wonder what will happen if I stay here for a week.

Pete lives here sometimes, and Patrick used to be in this group as well. This is where they met, and it brought Pat only good stuff, so he hopes that it will help me too. Pat finally told me a little bit more about himself, since I am here now too and he thinks I deserve to know why he was here at therapy. He had heavy depression and even heavier anxiety, and barely talked or got out of bed, which is fucked up to be honest. He got dragged to therapy and started to be more active, but still not as much. He met Pete here, Pete is suicidal, and has a broken home. He started working for his family, so that they could earn more and have a nice time. He used to have a normal job, but then it didn't earn enough, and he passed out during work once, so they fired him. He started selling drugs afterwards, and that's where they met Brendon. Sometimes the fights at home are so bad that Pete needs to get out, and since Patrick can't take him in since his parents don't even know who Pete is, and that's why he has a room here, and that I could always use it if I needed it. 

I've heard whispers of another kid who is in this friendgroup, but I never really saw him, until a few days ago. 

I started my therapysession, and around 10 minutes in a kid enters, together with two guards, who set him down and walked out again. He looked like shit to be honest, he had heavy bags under his eyes, and his hair was in all kinds of directions, like he had been pulling it. During lunchbreak Patrick was there, and he quickly took the kid under his wing, they knew eachother apparently. He hugged Patrick close and you were barely even aware he was there, not only that he was quiet, but he was also very skinny, like he hasn't eaten in days. Pete later told me that the kid had a lot of problems, and no one really knows, but they take care of him. The guards were there just to make sure he wouldn't ran off instead of going to therapy, which happened before apparently. I feel bad about him, but he has a mysterious vibe about him.

Pete said that he only trusts Patrick and Patrick knows the most about him, but not even half of it. I'm curious and I would really like to know what's going on. Right now I can place myself in the thoughts of the other kids, but with him I can't. 

 

Dallon talked to me about the therapysessions and he told me it was possible for me to stay there if I wanted to. I'll see, maybe I will, maybe I won't. But I need to go, school is starting soon.

 

Bye, friend

 


End file.
